HRI Columnists

HRI Selections

HRI Featured Bloggers

Indulto

"Players Up" blogger Indulto is a retired computer programming residing in SoCal and has been betting Thoroughbreds since the days of Kelso, cashing his first ticket at Saratoga while in college.

Indulto is well known in racing's cyber world as a participant on the Ragozin Sheets message board, the PaceAdvantage Forum, Paulick Report, and has made important contributions to the industry's audience as an HRI Readers Blog contributor.

Indulto was active in the formation of the Horseplayers Association of North America and with former HANA colleagues worked on the Players' Boycott of California racing when takeout rates were increased by the legislature there.

Taking his nickname from the King Ranch color-bearer of the 1960s, Indulto now devotes his time to advocate for the recreational player and hobbyist, but prefers lower takeout rates for all rather than subsidized rebates for the few.

Indulto supports the creation of a centralized racing authority to establish uniform rules for racing and wagering and for those standards to be enforced consistently.

Monthly Archives

Syndicate

Thursday, September 06, 2012

As we await the details of the implementation of “New NYRA," a few updates to some topics already discussed here are in order:

ITEM: Neil Milbert of the Chicago Tribune reported that Churchill Downs rejected Hawthorne’s appeal to include its Illinois Derby among the qualifying races for the Kentucky Derby.

“We flew down there for a meeting and it was suggested that moving the date would be of significance," Carey said. "We were willing to move (from the first Saturday in April) to March to be part of it and we got back to them. About three days later we got a letter from (Churchill track President Kevin Flannery) saying 'No, we can't do it.'"

What strikes me as self-defeating about this “redistricting” of horsemen is that -- unlike most UAE Derby starters -- Most Illinois Derby starters have Kentucky Derby aspirations. Can anyone name any U.S. horseman likely to ship to the UAE and back in order to qualify? Couldn’t Aiden O’Brien just as easily ship here to qualify, and get better results to boot?

ITEM: Media focus resumed on the hopefully soon-to-be-announced “New” NYRA leadership. One could almost hear the “Star Wars” theme blasting in Paul Moran’s reference to the State’s chief executive at ESPN, where he discussed the “… void left by the overthrow of a hapless board of trustees larded with those due political consideration and the announced intent to replace it with a hapless board almost purely composed of those due political consideration, the immediate period, post Saratoga, is critical.

“It is important that the inevitably inept be able to recognize and hire those who are highly capable, a difficult equation to balance. This will reveal immediately much concerning the intent of Gov. Andrew (Darth Vader) Cuomo regarding the future of racing and breeding in New York.

“For starters, NYRA needs a battle-tested chief executive officer with chops and the authority to carry out the remainder of a stem to stern retooling that results in more real production and fewer vice presidents. If a nation can function with one vice president, so can NYRA.”

Unfortunately no individuals were identified to play the Luke Skywalker and Hans Solo roles Mr. Moran subsequently defined. Others, however, did mention some possibilities.

ITEM: On August 15, Vic Zast blogged, “… Lou Raffetto, president of the Thoroughbred Owners of California and a person with 30 years experience of operating racetracks successfully in Maryland, New Jersey and Boston, was on the grounds, looking snappy. If the appointment of a new general manager for Saratoga was left up to fans, he’d be the selection.”

ITEM: On August 19
, HRI Executive Editor, John Pricci, wrote; “Do I have any special knowledge about who will take the reins? No, but I hear rumors like anyone else. As for former President Charlie Hayward’s replacement, the names heard most often are Lou Raffetto’s and Bill Murphy’s, by a margin of about 2-1.”

In comment #18 to the preceding, Sean Kerr, who leads a group of increasingly influential supporters of a National Horse Racing Commission called “Bladerunners,” opined; “We need a Jeff Seder - we need someone who has succeeded in taking a business and turning it into an innovative success.

“We need audacity: but that word is antithetical to the political world for the most part. And without audacity - NY racing is doomed.” I assume Mr. Kerr was referring so passionately to the gentleman interviewed here.

ITEM: On August 28, Bill Finley wrote; “There are a handful of terrific racing executives out there who would likely accept the job, even though the head positions at NYRA have always paid way less than they should. He could hire someone like Lou Raffetto, Bill Nader or Nick Nicholson and the future of New York racing would be in the type of good hands that would immediately ease the worries so many have for the sport.”

While Nader and Nicholson would come from two of the world’s most successful racing operations in Hong Kong and Kentucky, respectively, Raffetto would come from dysfunctional circumstances he did not create, but did not improve.

Some would argue that his credentials prior to his current stint in California have been compromised by his controversial role in continued concert with the organizations that control racing in that state in overwhelming deference to horsemen at horseplayer expense. Nader and Nicholson do not suffer from an anti-horseplayer perception.

Nader might be the best long-term choice, especially in New York where he is already a popular figure among NYRA customers. However, it is that very connection with the past that makes his approval by Gov. Cuomo, a longshot at best despite this statement by Bennett Liebman from March, 2007: “Without Bill Nader, is there a soul at NYRA with any significant management experience?”

But here is where my research got really interesting because the same Google search that found the preceding Liebman article, also found an earlier one from June, 2005.

ITEM: Is a villain’s helmet the appropriate headgear for the governor considering it wasn’t exactly a NYRA baseball Cap that Mr. Liebman was wearing when he wrote; “… everyone knew that Bill Nader and Charlie Hayward were good guys. Why wouldn’t a rational State of New York want these guys to run the racetracks?”

“… There should be an effort made to make the majority of the current trustees leave the Board. There may not be a formal basis for removal of these members, but there should be an effort made to persuade the NYRA Board members who have been on the NYRA board since before 2003 to leave the Board.

They have saddled the NYRA with financial, political, and legal problems that are nearly insolvable. If the State sees NYRA as the Board that sat back and did nothing while letting Barry Schwartz’s son-in-law get NYRA’s web contract without a bid, it doesn’t matter how nice Charlie Hayward and Bill Nader may be. For the good of NYRA, these people should go on their own.”

Was Liebman also referring to Hayward and Nader? Why was Hayward not subsequently attributed with “significant management experience’ more than five years ago?

Finally, Belmont survivor, Street Life, was injured in the Travers and has been retired. Like Bob Dylan asked; “How many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn’t see?”

Alpha’s sweep of the Jim Dandy and Travers was the second in successive years, but last year’s winner and Derby/Belmont survivor, Stay Thirsty, never won again. Will this year’s co-winner, Golden Ticket, whose victory followed a nearly three-month layoff, be the most likely three-year-old to annex the Breeders’ Cup Classic? Will he try to do it without a prep again?

If anyone cares to review the archives at HRI, they will find numerous infantile and repetitious rants by me questioning why NYRA has so many executives with six figure salaries, when the vast majority of employees are not highly skilled; why NYRA has a board (now referred to as directors) numbering twenty-six or so - just what do they do?
wondering just what are the tough decisions required of the CEO and COO that warrant such high salaries; and why NYRA continues to incur huge financial losses year after year under the auspices of a corp of trustees?

Are these guys qualified to render an opinion of NYRA, more so than me or my group of sharpies?
Moran, Zast, Pricci, Kerr, Finley, and Liebman.

Moran writes that NYRA needs a battle-tested chief with authority, and that NYRA should be able to function with one vice-president (a generic comment that could be applied to almost any business).

Zast writes that Lou Raffetto is qualified (IMO just about any college graduate is qualified).

Pricci comes forth with Raffetto and Murphy.

Kerr comes up with Jeff Seder.

Finley suggests Raffetto, Nickolson, and Nader.

The anonymous writer of this commentary finds a comment by Liebman, written a few years ago, suggesting that the NYRA board voluntarily depart.

Who are these guys, anyway? Experts on how NYRA should be managed? Anyone with experience operating a lemonade stand is qualified to be CEO of NYRA - again, what are the tough decisions (today, it is making sure the casino dole check gets timely deposited, I assume)?

Bill Finley writes that the head positions at NYRA have always paid less than they should (from what criterion did this opinion evolve?).

Seems to me that all one has to be is a turf writer and any opinion rendered is gospel.

Well anyway, I suggest that all the current directors be replaced by the first ten people who enter Belmont Park Saturday through the main entrance, and that the CEO, COO, and CFO be people who have managed, say, a fast food restaurant and have studied accounting and economics.

There is some merit to his last statement, assuming one’s attention remained after the preceding one.

Seems to me that if a turf writer is also a legitimate journalist such as the alphabetically ordered Messrs. Finley, Moran, Pricci, and Zast, then his opinions should be carefully considered by his audience rather than dismissed by disagreeing, disagreeably dogmatic denizens of dens of both iniquity and inequity called OTBs.

I believe Mr. Pricci has advocated for the appointment of a non-professional horseplayer to the NYRA board and I second that emotion. If wmc’s agenda were more balanced, I think he’d make a better board member than most, but turning Belmont into Parx would be a pox on players of all persuasions.

So, OTB’s are occupied by the degenerate, lowlifes, like me who are trying to, hopefully, use a buck to win enough to buy a beer, purchase a sandwich, and perhaps bring home milk for the kids?
A fact, (attention Mr. Kling ‘cause a fact is forthcoming), I, and my fellow lowlives, at the local OTB wager more in one day than John Galt, er Indulto, wager in a year!

Now, just how would turning Belmont into Parx be a pox on horseplayers? Please elaborate, or are you simply against claiming races?

What I would like to see happen is that I am appointed CEO of NYRA for a mere week. I would demand that all owners and trainers appear at a gathering before me. I would inform them that things are now different: no longer will there be a six figure purse. Maximum purse will be $60,000.
Don’t like it, get lost! Other trainers (approximately 6,500) will replace you with their owner’s plodders. And all the money saved from $1,000,000 purses to $100,000 purses will go to advertising/marketing Thoroughbred racing as a superior alternative to gambling at casinos.

The people out there who desire to gamble want to make money when gambling. Nobody made money at Saratoga this year (except me with my one bet).
What people need to know is that all races are basically the same, you bet, and you win or lose.
Turf writers present Thoroughbred racing as a sport, when us degenerates know that it is all about gambling.

I would like to muzzle all turf writers, but that appears to be an impossible task.

Again, Thoroughbred racing’s only hope left is to convince those comatose in front of slot machines that gambling on the ponies is more profitable; and this will not be achieved by one million dollar purses involving five or six horses, usually involving the usual suspects. Money going into purses that is distributed to three owners, three trainers, and three jockeys per race is an absolute disgrace; when all us bettors, er gamblers, desire is to cash a ticket; or stated another way, what to hell does purse have to do with us gamblers?

My envision of an advertising campaign would be to inform people that all races are identical; that a claiming race is equal to a stake race for wagering purposes.

Your propensity, #3, for self-application of the terms, “degenerate” and “low-life” are quite telling. As proud as you seem to be of your wagering volume, why aren’t you using an ADW that offers rebates?

Basically I’m an OTB patron, myself. Since I retired, most of my wagers have been placed in the “Smoke-Free” room in the Hollywood Park Clubhouse. When there is no live racing, it is - for all practical purposes - an OTB, but it’s far more comfortable for me than the simulcasting room in the adjoining Card Casino which has its own bar and conducts earlybird betting. This is because 1) I can breathe, 2) I can actually hear race calls (and from all tracks), 3) I can view most simulcast track monitors from wherever I’m seated, and 4) both teller windows and self-service machines are close by, and the lines are seldom long (plus those tellers seem friendlier). But the clincher is 5) even when I’m there by myself, I can leave my “Form” at the table and still find it there when I return. That hasn’t been the case in the grandstand for years.

After asking me to elaborate, you answered your own question. Try comparing handle for Parx with that of Belmont and then explain the differences.

I have had an ADW account since 1980 when the State of Connecticut operated off-track wagering.
When I first opened it I received ten deposit tickets and ten withdrawal tickets. I still have eight withdrawal tickets and have made at least a hundred deposits. For some unknown reason, I do poorly when wagering by telephone.

The OTBs today are owned by an English company and all, surprisingly, have been upgraded dramatically;
they are all non-smoking and now very clean. Leaving the “Form” in the carrel, however, is not a good idea. The English Company’s acquisition of the Ct. OTBs raised eyebrows? Why? I conclude that they are waiting for Ct. to approve sports wagering.

Now, as to Parx vs. Belmont attendance and handle should not be the criterion a bettor uses to decide where he wagers. What should influence a bettor’s decision as to where to wager is what racetrack is easier on his wallet. As stated numerous times at HRI, I simply cash more tickets when wagering on claiming races, especially at Parx and Delaware. I, in wanting Thoroughbred racing to survive, have been pleading with turf writers for years to give more recognition to these so-called second-tier tracks, as I have proven to myself that they are more rewarding financially; and have (and it took time) convinced several local OTB lowlifes, that NYRA is not the only worthy racetrack for one’s attention.

And, of course, you have read to ad nauseam my rants that all racing is identical, et cetera.

Thousands upon thousands of track patrons have been, and still are, being influenced by turf writers’ commentary that zero in on only a select few racetracks, trainers, and jockeys; thus the birds outnumber patrons at numerous second-tier racetracks.

Oh, and the bar is just a few feet from the carrel, and the bartender is a 12 on a scale of 10, which helps on losing days.

*** HorseRaceInsider will delete any comment that engages in personal attacks directed at anyone, uses foul language, or one made by an imposter using another’s name to express an opinion or comment.

HRI will not, however, edit or discourage those who, with intellectual honesty, disagree with HRI staffers or other readers. We also will not, as is done on some racing sites, edit disagreeable or negative commentary in the interests of commerce.